A Study On Goldblatt’s Translation Of Lang Tu Teng From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Lang Tu Teng, written by Jiang Rong, was published in April2004. It vividlydepicts a beautiful picture of Mongolian wolves and nomadic cultures. The Englishversion Wolf Totem is translated by Howard Goldblatt who is a famous sinologist.After its publication, it is awarded Man Asian Literary Prize. At present, there are26translation versions, including English, French, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Korean, etc.Since its release, the English version Wolf Totem has been probed into by manyscholars and translators from different angles, but most of these studies have beenconducted from different perspectives of translation theories. So far, few studies onthe translation of Lang Tu Teng have been done from the perspective of AdaptationTheory. Hence, it is necessary to make a comprehensive exploration of the translationof Lang Tu Teng on the basis of Adaptation Theory.Adaptation Theory is regarded as “an important pragmatic theory which hasstrong explanatory power and good application value and it is bound to have a brightprospect since it comprehends and explains pragmatics from a new perspective”(HeZiran, Yu Guodong,1999:428-435). This theory including four angles of investigation:contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, dynamics ofadaptability and salience of the adaptation processes highlights that language use is aprocess of making choices and dynamic adaptations. That is, language use shouldachieve its adaptations to the cognitive, social and cultural elements. Translation is across-cultural activity in which translators make continuous choices to adapt todifferent contexts, linguistic structures and the needs of target readers. Accordingly,the use of the target language must be in line with the social norms of the targetculture and adapt to target readers’ cognitive psychology so as to achieve successfulcommunication. Adaptation Theory is testified to have powerful explanatory powerfor translation.Based on Adaptation Theory, the present thesis is designed to detect how thetranslator Goldblatt makes choices, dynamic adaptations to communicative and linguistic contexts and dynamic adaptations to linguistic structure to achieve histranslation purpose in the process of translating Lang Tu Teng. Finally, some maintranslation strategies which include foreignization and domestication adopted byHoward Goldblatt are also summed up.The study reveals that the translation of Lang Tu Teng in fact is a process of bothlanguage shift and cultural transmission in which the translator Goldblatt continuouslymakes dynamic adaptations to contextual correlates and structural objects withdifferent degrees of salience under the guidance of specific translation purpose.During the whole process of translation, the translator Goldblatt makes continuouschoices to realize his translation aim. Therefore, translation is full of dynamic choicesand adaptations. Translators are supposed to flexibly adopt appropriate translationstrategies according to their specific translation intentions. Thus, it is not proper toevaluate a target text in a static way. Only such factors as the text structure of theoriginal, translation purposes, social backgrounds, cultural demand and reader’sexpectation are taken into consideration can the target text be a success.